


Closer

by BromeliadLucy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:48:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8731909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BromeliadLucy/pseuds/BromeliadLucy
Summary: Just a kind of, um, moody (?) short based on the song 'Closer' by The Tiny





	

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GbDa2UnAO4
> 
> The song's lovely even if the fic is dire! Sorry

I hadn’t managed to sleep for more than a few hours at a time in months now, and the world felt distant and strange. I’d been walking the city for hours through the night, unable to sleep for the thoughts that hunted me through my dreams. I’d walked until my feet were sore, my bones aching, but knowing I wouldn’t sleep. That’s when I ended up in the bar, slumped on a stool as if I might find a respite there. It was dark outside the window, the streetlights and headlights were starbursts in my tired eyes. I looked for that respite at the bottom of glass after glass but there wasn’t any peace in my head, despite the world becoming blurrier and further away.

Then, a moment of clarity. I looked up as someone sat on the stool next to me. He signalled to the bartender with one finger, obviously a regular. He didn’t look at me, ran his hands through dark hair, rubbed tired grey eyes, scratched at stubble on his jaw. His face was weary, I recognised a fellow sufferer. He nodded his thanks to the bartender, who’d brought a glass and a bottle. He downed the glass in one swift gulp, grimacing at the burn on his throat, then poured himself another. He tilted the glass back and forth on the bar, then downed it again. His head was low, and he looked into the glass for answers, without finding them.

The bartender caught my eye and I nodded, and he brought me another glass too. I sipped this one slowly, turned back away from the man who was obviously lost in his own world, kept myself to my world too. But as I tilted my head back and swallowed the last of my drink, I felt him turn and look at me. When our eyes met, he nodded. He knew me. We’d never met, but he knew me. Knew that I was trying to run from myself, hiding from the world.

He caught the barman’s eye, gestured for another glass, poured me a drink. We both half smiled, heads tilted back, hope pouring down our throats as we drank. And so it continued, all that evening. His name was James, he said, hesitating as he told me. That was OK, I didn’t give him my real name either. This wasn’t a night for reality. My heart was pumping fast, chasing the alcohol around my body, and every part of my body was calling out for something it hadn’t wanted in a long time. Humanity. Touch. To be close to someone.

The bar closed, around 3am, and we left together. Moving off the stool and up the steps to the street, I realised how drunk I was. My feet didn’t seem to meet the ground when I expected, and the world swayed as if I was stoned. It was dark out, the dark of broken bulbs and a clouded moon. We started walking, the cold night air trying to bring clarity to my whisky-soaked mind. My heart was screaming now, to touch him, and his must have been doing the same. We reached for each other’s hands at the same time, needing to be closer.

As we walked, we passed under pools of orange glow, streetlights revealing the street intermittently. I looked up as we walked under one patch of light, and saw his face reveal what mine was surely showing. The tiredness, the drinking, the late nights, the running from yourself; it was both cause and symptom of the loneliness that showed on his face, and that I saw whenever I caught my reflection in a dark window.

We continued to walk, until I had to admit that we’d reached my street. He nodded, let go of my hand and thrust his deep into his pockets as if to stop them reaching out for something. My hand felt cold, letting go of his, as I crossed the street and climbed the steps. He stood, between two patches of light, on the other side of the road and watched. His eyes were in shadow, his face unreadable. My heart felt stretched, pulling back towards this worn-down, worn-out man I’d only just met. I fumbled in my pocket for my keys, heard a horn sound, turned back. He was walking across the road towards me, cars swerving to avoid him. He reached the bottom of my steps, and for a moment I let myself imagine that these were our steps, that he was mine. He climbed up, stood beside me, close, closer than anyone had been for a long time.

“I need you.” He leant his forehead against mine, eyes closed with exhaustion, the bone-deep weariness of the prey who can’t run any more.

I slept that night, for the first time in years. Deep, dreamless sleep. So did he.


End file.
